John Batchelor

Archdeacon John Batchelor D.D., OBE (20 March 1855 – 2 April 1944) was an Anglican English missionary to the Ainu people of Japan until 1941. First sent under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society of the Church of England, Batchelor lived from 1877 to 1941 among the indigenous Ainu communities in the Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. He was a charismatic and iconoclastic missionary for the Anglican Church in Japan and published highly regarded work on the language and culture of the Ainu people. Batchelor only reluctantly left Japan at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1941. Early life and missionary career John Batchelor was born in Uckfield, East Sussex son of William Batchelor, a local tailor and parish clerk. Batchelor attended Uckfield Grammar School and with the support of the Rev. E.T. Cardale was accepted as a candidate for study at the Church Missionary Society College, Islington. On 22 September 1875, Batchelor set out with a group of Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries for Hong Kong. Arriving in Hong Kong on 11 November 1875 he immediately set about studying the Chinese language. While in Hong Kong Batchelor fell ill to malaria and hearing that the climate in Hokkaido was similar to his native England left for Hokkaido via Yokohama. He left Hong Kong on 31 May 1877, then on 16 July he boarded a freight ship to Hakodate from Yokahama. In Hakodate he was assigned as a junior to the senior missionary Walter Dening of the CMS, settling in the city's Motomachi district. It was in Hakodate that he had his first encounter with the Ainu. Hakodate from 1877